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One of the most credible economic stewards to serve Britain in a long time is the inscrutable Philip Hammond who has done nothing but improve the UK economy since the day he was sworn in to the post. Which was merely an extension of him having been born for the job, it seems.

It’s not only that; Mr. Hammond’s word carries a lot of weight in foreign capitals, and in the EU his word is his bond. Soft-spoken, adroit and adept, Hammond is one of the darlings of financial capitals everywhere and it’s a great thing to see him in his element.

So began Prime Minister Theresa May’s summer vacation, where she and her husband (also named Philip) went off to Switzerland to take the mountain air and hold long and meaningful conversations at full stride up the Matterhorn.

Leaving the country in the capable hands of Philip Hammond must be a comforting thought for Theresa May as she and hubby blow past the tourists struggling to get to the top for a selfie. My advice: Just get out of their way or you’ll get run over. Seriously.

The Exchequer comments on post-Brexit Immigration

However wonderful it is having a powerful Exchequer, there is the temptation for them to overstep their bounds and cross over into the areas of responsibility reserved for the Prime Minister.

And just as predictably as that; Before Theresa May had gotten her first alpine air, Hammond told reporters, “there should be no immediate changes to immigration or trading rules when Britain leaves the EU in March 2019.” (Sky News)

It’s forgivable, and probably wise for Conservatives to be seen voicing the concerns of voters on both sides of Brexit. However, Exchequers should stick to their primary interest (the economy!) and let others, whose direct responsibility it is, to hold forth on immigration issues.

With Theresa away, the Remainers will play

While Theresa May gets some mountain air, the Remainers in the Prime Minister’s cabinet are clearing the air by presenting their side of Brexit — and that’s fine. But let’s make certain that fair play rules are enforced; Which means that cabinet officers publicly comment only on their primary area of responsibility. Only the Prime Minister has the authority to publicly comment on all matters, otherwise it looks like a circus.

Every misstep is celebrated in foreign capitals. People in the EU who may be opposed to Brexit are incredibly strengthened by each implied criticism directed towards the Prime Minister by members of her cabinet.

The entire period of Brexit is a highly unique time, a time where all Britons must pull together and come to the realization that many in the EU are fighting for a ‘Win-Lose’ outcome, an outcome where Britain loses vis-à-vis the European Union.

Meanwhile, the best of the Brexiters are fighting for a ‘Win-Win’ outcome where both Britain and the EU win. And those are the people I’m putting my money on.

Clear Lines + Clear Thinking = Positive Results

There’s nothing wrong with MP’s on both sides of Brexit informing the public about how they would proceed on any matter — as a sort of trial balloon to gauge public mood. That can be useful moving forward by keeping those who voted Remain interested and engaged with Brexit, and there is every opportunity that Remainers may come up with excellent ideas related to soft Brexit implementation within their field of expertise.

But greater care must be taken to avoid strengthening the hand of anti-Brexit forces in the EU, now that Britain has finally! asserted her rights.

Government ministers must draw the distinction between legitimate discussions about how Remainers (read: Soft Brexiters) or vocal Brexiters (read: Hard Brexiters) would handle any Brexit issue — and how the wrong sort of discussions or even the wrong tone of discussions could work against Britain in foreign capitals. The wrong public discourse works against both versions of Brexit.

Let’s not be naive. Each misstep by anyone in the UK government is celebrated at the EU Parliament and certain EU capitals. Whatever is going on behind the scenes within the UK government, a unified face must be presented to the world in order to obtain the best Brexit result.

Controlling the Narrative: Job #1 for Every Prime Minister

UK government ministers, and possibly even the Prime Minister herself may not yet realize the extent to which the world now sees the United Kingdom as a completely different entity. The UK no longer exists as only one of 28 EU members, and what the UK will eventually become, is unfolding every day like an onion being unpeeled.

Is the UK destined to become a nation of cross-talkers, mixed messages and unreliable partners? Or is Britain starting with a clean sheet to become all that she can and should become in the 21st-century?

Only the Prime Minister knows, as she’s the one holding the pen. Let’s see what script she writes.

Some things are expected, and some things sure aren’t. And one of the things that wasn’t expected even by the most vociferous Brexiteers prior to the June 23 referendum, was the strength of the UK economy.

Britain’s GDP from 2010 to 2020. To view the interactive chart, visit Statista.com

In the run-up to the referendum, Bremainers used the fear of an economic crash in the UK to good effect, lowering support for Brexit from a high of almost 70% down to 52% in the final two weeks of the campaign.

Even so, Britons ‘knowing’ in their hearts there would be high economic costs to exit the EU (because famous Op/Ed journalists told them so) they still voted for more democracy, more sovereignty, and more control over immigration

The latest OECD report, informs us that GDP growth in the UK next year will be a healthy 2% — beating major Western and developing nation economies, and the following year is estimated to be in the 1.5% range. Not bad, considering the doom that was supposed to be upon us and considering that the OECD itself had earlier predicted UK growth to be at 1.5% and 1.2% (at best) over the same two-year period.

Sure, some things need to be carefully navigated. Raising the minimum wage for UK workers over age 25 (called The National Living Wage) could be an additional cost for some employers and could thereby increase the unemployment rate among workers. But it’s an overstatement to say that could happen in a growing economy however, if the economy begins to contract it becomes incrementally more serious.

Something else that bears watching is the fall in the value of the pound — which is seen as a desirable thing by economists as it increases exports in almost every country where currency devaluation has ever occurred — but if it doesn’t happen, a speedy remedy must be found. A falling currency with no appreciable increase in exports has no value at all, and only serves to make foreign goods and foreign travel for Britons, more expensive. Government intervention must therefore be instant and right on target in order to rectify the problem.

The UK economy is largely service based (due to the historical high valuation of the British pound) and with a falling pound manufacturing exports should rise in tandem with the falling currency (with plenty of lag time, as it isn’t an instant process) yet if it carries on for too many months, government must intervene to help exporters.

Help is not ‘help’ unless it is actually help.

Providing the right kind of assistance to British manufacturers is key here. There’s no use having the international trade office providing help to access foreign markets if transportation bottlenecks are the problem! Likewise, if limited access to rare-earth metals is the thing restricting manufacturers, lowering the corporate tax rate won’t help.

It’s about listening carefully to the needs of exporters

It’s about meeting every manufacturing CEO and giving them a full and fair hearing in regards to their corporate needs. And then, solving the problems surrounding their inability to export in huge volumes.

It’s doubtful that a one-size-fits-all solution is going to work in Britain’s case. It’s likely that a range of issues need to be addressed. Certainly, companies have a different challenges. For example, some have never exported railway steel (due to the historically high pound) while others that export designer clothing (the high pound just isn’t a factor in this particular market) but face competition from nations which allow ‘knock-offs’ of Britain’s famous clothing brands.

In previous decades, governments threw money at corporations or give them massive tax breaks to allow them to take care of the problems, themselves. But those days are past.

In our time, governments simply don’t have multi-billions to hand to industry as the massive economic growth that was a consequence of massive population increases (courtesy of the baby-boom generation) are long past — and massive corporate tax breaks just aren’t possible as the present corporate tax rates can only be termed ‘marginal’ compared to the ‘heavy’ corporate tax rates of the 1950’s – 1990’s.

All of this means that the British government must begin to see UK companies as ‘part of the solution’ to Britain’s economic future as opposed to ‘part of the problem’ — which is how the corporate world was viewed by government in the pre-2000 era.

High growth is a wonderful thing for senior executives, it’s a great thing for a sitting government, but it means the people in the bottom-three quintiles face ever-lower wages, more unemployment, resulting in a lowered standard of living for those citizens. And let’s not forget, lower standards of living directly and always equate to higher healthcare costs so there’s no savings anyway. At least, not for governments or families.

While the days of fixing everything with one silver bullet are over, there is still plenty the UK government can do to boost GDP; By assisting manufacturers to re-learn how to export and find new markets, helping industry to boost productivity by redirecting education towards the always changing needs of industry, by providing additional R&D tax breaks for companies — and to provide decent jobs for those left behind via massive and ongoing infrastructure spending programmes, rather than have them rely on eternal government support.

It’s clear that Building a Better Britain begins and ends with Building a Better Economy

Therefore, as important as every other matter before government is (including Brexit!) it’s all for naught if the economy begins to fail, because when the economy fails, so does industry, society, and governments, which tend to fall… hard. Just ask any former politician.

In this new century every country has its challenges. And these days, even advanced nations like Britain are challenged to balance the books while still providing the services that citizens depend on, and international partners expect.

No Worries. It’s easy as pie!

But we’ll get to the pie charts later. For now, let’s sketch out some broad outlines that a vast majority of people probably agree on.

And number one on the list must be that rich countries shouldn’t be running budget deficits. Ever. With the possible exception of major national emergencies or God-forbid, another World War. Other than those caveats, there is simply no excuse good enough that G7 nations should be running budget deficits. Full stop.

Ours is the most advanced civilization the world has ever known, we are literally swamped in knowledge and technology, and our ability to communicate and trade with other nations is almost limitless.

Why then, do developed nations have budget deficits that have piled-up over the decades to the extent that some nations have debt levels approaching 260% of GDP? (NOTE: Government debt is merely the total of their accumulated deficits)

It’s a very good question and the answer is; WWI, WWII, the Cold War, assorted other wars like Vietnam, the 1990 Gulf War, the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War — all of these required massive spending on a buy-now/pay-later basis.

For one example of how costly this is, the total interest payments just to service U.S. government debt since deficit spending began, equals $2.5 trillion dollars.

Here are the highlights from the U.S. Debt Clock (courtesy of the U.S. Treasury)

For one trillion dollars (from the year 2000 through the year 2050)every unemployed American citizen could have been given a job paying them $50,000/year for their entire working life, and each kid who couldn’t afford to pay their university tuition themselves could have gotten one baccalaureate degree paid for by the U.S. government, and each U.S. citizen living on welfare could have been paid $25,000/yr to keep the mailboxes on their street clean and painted, and the sidewalk swept. With quite a few billion dollars left over by the time 2050 rolled around.

Instead, all of the money spent on war by the United States was borrowed money that will never be paid off — and American citizens will be paying the interest indefinitely. Forever is a long time.

For comparison purposes, the population of the United Kingdom is almost exactly one-fifth of the United States. Below is a snapshot of Britain’s deficit and debt picture.

Britain’s total national debt — £1.7 trillion

Britain’s debt per citizen — £28,589

Britain’s debt per taxpayer — £49,174

Britain’s budget deficit — £19.1 billion

Britain – Government expenditures for Fiscal Year 2017

At the moment, the UK government is doing three things well to help Britain’s economy

The brightest spot for Britain’s economy is the already-passed legislation requiring that all central government budgets be balanced from 2020-onward.

Another hopeful sign is that Philip Hammond, Chancellor of the Exchequer, has devoted £1.3 billion to a road building plan in his recent Autumn Statement, thereby allowing thousands of workers to continue working, and adding hundreds of presently unemployed workers to the workforce.

In the creative accounting department, workers can now save some money and their employers can save even more — while both avoid some amount of National Insurance cost compared to the existing calculation method, via the so-called ‘Salary Sacrifice’ method.

Britain – Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond does a bit of magical accounting (the good kind) to make British tax law more efficient. Click on the image to read the Daily Mail article.

While these seem to be small (but brilliant) improvements to the UK economy, it’s important to remember that the Theresa May government is less than 130 days old. And although these are baby steps, they are positive and add certainty to Britain’s economic outlook.

More fiscal and monetary levers need to be applied than that however. And importantly, countercyclical policy must be employed as a long-term economic lever throughout the British economy, with special emphasis on creating employment during economic downturns.

What else could be done to help Britain’s economy?

Quite a lot.

Every government in the world needs money to operate, and the taxes gained from personal income tax are already too high (just ask any taxpayer) while higher corporate taxes are detrimental to attracting business to your country.

Still bound by EU trade laws over the next (approx) 36 months, how can Britain excel economically?

a) One of the reasons that Canada virtually breezed-through the financial crisis of 2009-2012 is that it had the lowest corporate tax rate in the developed world, it ranks well for ease of doing business, and it has a streamlined process for existing businesses to relocate to Canada allowing corporations to easily move to a lower corporate tax rate — all of which worked to keep Canada on an even keel throughout the global financial crisis. (Not world-changing, but ‘just enough’ to get the job done for Canada)

In retrospect, during the boom times, a low Canadian corporate tax rate represented a slight loss in revenue for Canada, but during the recession the low corporate tax rate promoted many relocations to Canada — when they weren’t prevented by President Obama, that is.

In the case of the Burger King fast food chain, it decided to relocate to Canada in order to save billions in corporate taxes, however, the U.S. President decided to block the move. Although I’m still a fan of President Obama, it teaches us that there are very real limits to the benefits of low corporate taxes, due to market interference by politicians that say they believe in free markets, but don’t. And there are many of those.

Still, a low corporate tax rate that matches the Canadian rate would attract new business to Britain. There will be times that such moves are overruled by faux free trade governments, but on the main, Britain would gain more than it would lose by matching Canada’s corporate tax rate.

Yes, the UK government would lose some amount of corporate tax revenue in the short-term. However, that is balanced-off by the hundreds of new businesses that would relocate to Britain over the long-term — possibly even from Canada which can’t compete with the astronomical level of economic activity in London, nor a prestigious London address.

Inclusive in the term free enterprise with free markets, means that corporations are free to set their headquarters anywhere they want.

Where to recapture that corporate tax revenue loss and add billions more revenue?

b) The most efficient way for Britain to recover that short-term revenue loss and to gain billions more revenue, is by instituting a 5% tariff on every good that arrives in the country.

If Britain and her trade partners agree to the same 5% tariff and a standardized list of exemptions in their own countries, there will be nothing to fight over.

On a personal note, because I happen to believe that knowledge is the solution to all problems, I have a problem with taxes on books, whether they are books printed on paper, recorded on DVD’s, or are purchased as E-books.

Similar applies to those medicines that save lives. Such things should be exempted from all forms of taxation, including tariffs. Everywhere on the planet.

By instituting a nominal tariff of 5% Britain would also make imported products minimally more expensive, while Made in Britain products would become more cost-competitive. British manufacturing (jobs) would see an uptick and sales (profits) would increase.

NOTE: Not to make this too complicated here, but many of Britain’s exports are high-end items. If there happens to be a 5% tariff placed on British goods in other countries, don’t expect it to stop foreign buyers from purchasing an Aston Martin, for example.

At the other end of the market, low-end items such as imported T-shirts which typically sell for £1.40 will not be much affected by a 5% tariff. However, it would be reasonable to expect an uptick in the sales of UK manufactured T-shirts. (In a perfectly efficient UK T-shirt market, a 5% sales increase in UK manufactured T-shirts could be expected once the foreign manufactured T-shirt inventory is sold off)

Obviously, both the pricey and the least pricey items wouldn’t be much affected by a 5% tariff (for very different reasons) but foreign manufactured items in the middle price ranges will be the items affected, and the market would see a corresponding rise in the sales of UK manufactured items. Things like computer monitors, home exercise equipment, and food processors, for example.

A 5% tariff would raise uncountable billions of pounds sterling for the British government — exactly in the time of deficit elimination, and as unprecedented immigration levels have increased unemployment among blue-collar workers in Britain, and as Brexit roils the markets, and as a potentially protectionist U.S. administration is crowned.

In short, there is every reason for Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, to create a minimal and standardized tariff structure (that all of Britain’s trade partners could buy-into) means that it could be passed immediately if EU parties agree thereto. Otherwise, it can’t begin to take effect until the day after Brexit occurs.

Even so, there’s no reason that the legislation couldn’t be researched and written now, ready for Day One of post-Brexit Britain.

I can’t emphasize it enough. The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister must SELL their trade partners on this tariff, proving that it will be a net benefit to all of Britain’s trade partners. (If a mild tariff can do all that for Britain’s economy, it can do the same for EU nation economies)

In the absence of convincing EU trade partners of the wisdom of this plan, three years of tariff revenue will be lost — revenue that could have been used to dramatic effect in the UK economy.

c) While Philip Hammond’s £1.3 billion road building plan is a good one, it needs to be upgraded to a £130 billion national infrastructure plan.

So much of Britain’s infrastructure — from roads and bridges, to trains and trams, to airports and seaports, and to significant other structures and buildings — need replacement, repair, or major upgrades.

It could even save money over the long-term. In the case of many of Britain’s old government buildings, due to their obscene electricity consumption and inefficient insulation, some old buildings cost millions of pounds per month to light and heat.

Millions of British jobs would be created over 10-years and all of it paid for by a tariff on imported goods.

(Yes China, the U.S., and other UK trade partners, please export more stuff to Britain, as we need the tariff revenue!)

The tariff could easily provide enough funding to accomplish all of this and more, once Britain is running balanced budgets.

d) Legislation that permits up to 5% of electricity demand *in each UK county* be met with clean coal, means return to employment for thousands of coal miners, it means the construction of hundreds of small, clean-coal power stations, and it means that an amount of reliable and cheap electricity equal to the demand of all government buildings is sourced, produced, and sold — in Britain, for Britain, and by Britons.

Allowing 5% of demand per county to be met with clean coal power stations ensures that the country can stay on track to meet its international CO2 commitments and avoid the negative healthcare costs associated with behemoth scale coal power stations located near major population centres.

These are simple ways to attract new business to Britain, to increase revenue for a government still on the mend from the global recession, to create jobs and increase profits for the construction, manufacturing, and coal mining and coal-fired generation segments of the economy, and to add much-needed stability to the UK energy grid.

Instead of waiting to do it all after Brexit — and who knows what might happen to the global economy in the meantime — it’s better to take Britain out of its economic shackles, now, proactively, and with vigour.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, has made some deft moves in recent days. Let’s hope this is the beginning and not the end of this trend.